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Hong Kong Chronicles Institute’s latest book focuses on city’s key role in China’s reform and opening up since 1978

  • China may not have transformed and opened up to the world without Hong Kong, book editor says
  • Changes on mainland led city to change course, develop into global financial centre it is today

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The 19-chapter book Hong Kong’s Participation in National Reform and Opening Up became available on Monday. Photo: Edmond So

A new history book out on Monday tells the story of Hong Kong’s role in China’s economic reform and opening up since 1978, and how both have gained in the decades since, but the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown is a conspicuous absence in its chronology of related events.

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The city played a “vital, critical and decisive” role in China’s economic miracle, said one of the book’s chief editors, Professor Edward Chen Kwan-yiu.

“It is possible that China would not have achieved its current status and excellent achievements as the world’s second-largest economy without the part played by Hong Kong, and Hong Kong people should be proud of that,” he told a media briefing on Friday.

The 19-chapter volume, Hong Kong’s Participation in National Reform and Opening Up, was unveiled during a ceremony at Government House on Monday.

“Hong Kong’s Participation in National Reform Opening Up” focuses on the mutually beneficial relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China as the country emerged from the Cultural Revolution. Photo: Edmond So
“Hong Kong’s Participation in National Reform Opening Up” focuses on the mutually beneficial relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China as the country emerged from the Cultural Revolution. Photo: Edmond So

Two years in the making, it is part of an ambitious history project led by Our Hong Kong Foundation, a think tank chaired by the city’s first post-handover leader, Tung Chee-hwa, and published by its Hong Kong Chronicles Institute.

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